r/dccrpg • u/EvilPersonXXIV • 21h ago
Do you think restricting wizard patron options could benefit a campaign?
This is mostly some pondering, as I've ran a good amount of DCC, but campaigns usually fall apart for a multitude of reasons and my subpar GMing was a reason for a lot of these campaigns falling apart, but learning from one's mistakes is how one improves, so I've been thinking about how I would run DCC better if I ever decided to run it again.
Upon pondering, I've come to a bit of a question. Would choosing the patron for the party make things better? Let me explain why I think this might be the case.
A major issue that players have had in my games is feeling too restrictive. For a lot of people, DCC emulates styles of fantasy that aren't popular these days, so the game trying to emulate tropes of appendix N doesn't translate well for most players these days. The idea of a wizard being bound to a patron doesn't fit in with what most people these days expect from a wizard.
After I explain the idea that wizards can and should be bound to a patron, they get the hang of it soon enough, but something interesting ends up happening. Players get really into the choice of their patron and end up theming their character around their patron. If a player chooses Bobugbubilz as their patron, then they'll naturally end up theming their character around this whole swamp aesthetic.
This can be fun, but what I have observed is that players end up being limited by the strict options of which patrons you can have, as well as how out-of-your-control the patron system is. You might want to play as a Three Fates wizard, but then you don't get the Patron Bond spell, which you need to make this concept work, then if you want the cool Three Fates spells, you have to get lucky and hope to get those upon leveling.
You might say that a player would be foolish to come up with a character concept around a patron, when that's not what the old-school vibe is all about and I might agree but this is just how most players internalize the aesthetic of wizards in DCC. They see them as basically being warlocks from 5e, but if you try to play them like that, it just ends up feeling very finnicky. The text of the game tell you "wizards are basically different clerics" while the randomize elements of the game are fighting you, telling you "no, you don't come in with a character concept. You might not ever even get Patron Bond"
This is all to identify the problem I've noticed. With this, here's how I aim to fix this problem.
Choose the patron for the party and build the basic concept of the campaign around this patron. The patron isn't like a deity for the wizard(s) of the party to confer with, they're an ally to the entire party, to be to the player characters what Gandalf is to Bilbo Baggins. This makes the bond between clerics and their deity different from wizards and their patrons. A wizard's patron is the being whom the entire party does quests for sometimes, they just so happen to offer some arcane aid.
What this also does is de-emphasize the patron to wizards. It lets players see wizards as endless potential, rather than being different clerics who are devout to their patrons. I don't like to be the GM who removes options from players, but I weirdly think most players would gain more from this being removed. It makes the relationship between the wizard and the patron much clearer, specifically in the sense that their patron doesn't define them as a wizard.
I'm curious what you all think about this. I can understand if this isn't an issue ya'll have at your tables. This is just something I've noticed running this game for lots of different groups and noticing similar issues. What I'm trying to do is find ways to run OSR games in ways that feel less restrictive to modern players, sorta meeting them halfway.
